A common method of getting a pistol ready for action requires the following actions to be performed: getting the pistol out of the holster, removing the safety lock, and drawing off the slide with the help of the other hand to send the cartridge from the cartridge clip into the cartridge chamber. It involves two hands and takes a long time.
Methods of getting pistols ready for action and the holster for portable firearms according to the patent RF N 2150648, M.Cl.6: F41C 33/00, published May 6, 1995 are known and they are taken as nearest analogue-prototypes.
According to the method described on pages 5-13 of the description and claim 14 of patent N 2150648, getting the pistol ready for action is carried out with the help of one hand by shifting the barrel of the pistol with respect to the sliding element (the slide) in the holster, which contains the case with the blocking device. The blocking device of the holster contains a supporting element with an actuating lever and fixing lever for the slide stop.
The muzzle of the firearm is placed on the fixing lever and the grip of the arm is put in the direction of the fixing lever to shift the barrel and to fix the hole for throwing away the cartridge shell on the arm at the level of the actuating lever. The actuating level is then inserted through the hole for cartridge shells into the cartridge chamber of the arm. Thus, the arm is fixed in the blocking device between the actuating lever of the cartridge chamber and the fixing lever at the muzzle. The safety lock must be removed before setting the pistol in the holster.
To get the firearms ready for action, the grip of the arms is first pressed to the fixing lever, making the clearance for the actuating lever to go out of the cartridge chamber. The firearm is then inclined to extract the actuating lever out of the cartridge chamber. The grip is kept pressed to the fixing lever to shift the barrel to open the cartridge chamber completely to insert the cartridge into it. The firearm is then taken out of the holster.
The holster for portable firearms taken as a prototype (see pages 5-24 of the description and claim 16 of patent N 2150648), comprises the case, the plate adjoining the case and the unit for the slide stop till the cartridge chamber is open completely and the cartridge is sent into it.
The above methods of getting firearms ready for action have the following drawbacks:
a long preparation is required for getting the firearms ready for action;
the holster is not very reliable;
a complicated curve trajectory of the hand movements is required, which requires thorough mastering of movement coordination.
Additional drawbacks of the above described holster for portable firearms is that its design reduces the reliability of the pistol because it is impossible to fix the pistol when the cartridge is in the cartridge chamber since the magazine and any cartridges, which are in the cartridge chamber, must be first removed from the recess for the magazine. In addition because the cartridge chamber is open, it is possible for foreign objects to get into it. Recoil spring of the slide and the spring of the hammer when keeping the arms in the holster is constantly in the pressed state, which reduces the reliability of the pistol.